


blue sky eyes

by ephemeral_fallacy



Category: Assassination Classroom
Genre: Angst, Child Abuse, Death, Gen, Gradual Relationship, IM DYING HERE, Labored Breathing And Terrified People, M/M, Stockholm Syndrome, angst.png, i will overdose on more gay later maybe, is like half gay, karma is not very gay in this fic im sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-21
Updated: 2014-12-21
Packaged: 2018-03-02 14:48:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2816030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ephemeral_fallacy/pseuds/ephemeral_fallacy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He never expected the clear blue eyes of the transfer student to stick in his heart like a stake.</p>
<p>It's not like Karma feels regret when he thinks of Nagisa, but he's tried not to lie to himself before.</p>
            </blockquote>





	blue sky eyes

**Author's Note:**

> ITS NOT GAY  
> AND IM SORRY  
> THIS SUCKS SHIT BC ITS NOT BETA-READ AND ITS LITERALLY 10K+ WORDS IM WORRIED  
> WTF MAN KARUNAGI GET THE FUCK OUT IM SCREAMIGN AND I CAN T BR A THE TK WHAT HAVE I DO n e

  
The mornings after that fateful day, Karma wanders the beaten path, familiar plants growing in the dirt and leaning their spindly arms towards him. No one can really tell what he’s thinking about, _his gray eyes flicker with unknown emotion, and to whatever sound, he turns towards it, like lightning,_ and he knows that. But he keeps quiet, his lips are tight and he continues to search, with the early morning light filtering through the trees as his only guide.

He looks for the lies that he can’t find in the mountain, he looks for honeyed illusions to coat his mouth with.

But as the sun and temperature rise, he breathes a sigh. _It’s ultimately futile, isn’t it?_

__

_It’s all his fault._

* * *

 

It all starts with the transfer student.

The classroom is buzzing with activity, students flocking in their little cliques, whispering and muttering softly and rumors are already spreading. And this is normal. Karma spins the pencil in his hand and leans back to gaze lazily at the ceiling. He’s not interested at all in the new transfer student. He won’t ever be interested, unless they provide him entertainment. But he hardly thinks that anyone in Kunigigaoka would fit that requirement.

_It’s just a small suburb next to a mountain, nothing here is special and nothing will ever be._

Just as the teacher slides open the door, the students are hushed, as if by a spell binding their tongues. There are two pairs of footsteps Karma hears, one is the usual teacher, _his soles are kind of squeaky against the polished tile_ , and the other is more of a tap. A lighter, gentler touch. A girl?

When the student walks in, there are collective gasps that turn into silence of confusion.

He has blue hair, as blue as the sky, up in pigtails; they match his blue, blue eyes that stare at the floor as if he were a servant. His hands tightly grip his bag in front of him and he wears the school uniform, long sleeves and pants and all. He writes his name, slowly, letting the chalk squeak as it rubs against the board, and the class is completely silent.

_‘Shiota Nagisa.’_

“I know it sounds like a girl’s name,” he starts as he turns around. His eyes really are a vivid ocean of blue, but Karma can’t be any more interested in them than the sky. _He compares them, and deems them the same shade, then shrugs and watches the kids from the other class during PE from outside his window._ “But I’m nothing like a girl!”

He’s positively shining, completely different from the way he walked in. His pigtails flop with every one of his movements and the redhead finds it absurdly annoying.

“Because...I’m an assassin!”

Karma doesn’t know if its the clenched fist, or if it’s his eyes that shine like the morning sky, or if it’s the way his chest moves as if just that movement has tired him. He doesn’t know why he already hates Shiota Nagisa, but it’s clear he’s not alone.

Only he, the blue-haired boy, is left smiling as he’s sent to his seat, the last seat remaining at the back.

 

* * *

 

Karma hardly pays attention to the blue-haired boy. During the break, plenty of people come to peer in from the door and he can hear all the whispering and the rumors that are soon to circulate the school with its ridiculousness. He shifts his papers into the binder and clicks it closed, leaving this desk empty and satisfying.

_Today is a lazy day too, it’s not like he has to pay attention._

“Your hair is so silky! What do you use--”

“ _Don’t_. Touch my hair.”

And then, he tunes out. _Silly conversations don’t entertain him at all. Mysteries, on the other hand…_

His eyes wander back out the window. Two birds fly almost wing-to-wing, looping and cawing and soaring through the air. The blue sky hangs like a cloak over the world and Karma wonders if one day he can break through it and see what’s beyond, but he shrugs, because no one in the junkyard of a town he lives in will be able to make it to any hotshot science laboratories.

Outside, the rolling green hills and rural landscape are the same things he sees every day. The damn same thing and yet even with the transfer student, nothing has changed.

Almost as if sensing his agitation, Nagisa’s eyes slide over to watch Karma’s almost quivering back. His eyes narrow, and the students on his left side stop talking and move away from him, muttering so low that he can’t hear. It doesn’t seem like he cares, because he never stops observing the redhead.

When the teacher walks in, his eyes don’t stray, but Karma never notices.

* * *

 

When the bell rings, Karma is jerked awake from his slumber. The guy next to him, _is his name Terasaka? It really doesn’t matter…_ snickers as he slides his chair back into the desk and dashes for the door, calling for his friends to wait for him. The redhead, on the other hand, groans and rubs his bangs from his eyes as he moves to get up and sling his bag over his shoulder.

The classroom is almost empty, there are several girls milling about together, whispering and giggling, again, about something as unnecessary as their hairpins and makeup. He passes them and glances at the transfer student’s desk. It’s empty and he supposes the boy left before anyone could catch him. The other students probably don’t know about how weird he is.

His shoes click against the tile as he walks along the walls of the empty hallway. Karma shoves his hands in his pockets and looks outside. Some students already in their uniforms are pitching and hitting; baseball isn’t his sport, since he has no interest in doing things in repetition. Others are walking home, in bunches, shoving each other and laughing as carefree as unleashed dogs.

He laughs to himself, because humans are probably dogs in reality. Every movement is really leashed, whether to their friends, or higher-ups.

Karma knows that he won’t ever be the one leashed.

As he reaches the entrance and changes his shoes, the silence of the building is almost peaceful, although he never gets to hear it. It’s one of the first times that he’s heard how quiet things can really be and although it’s partially unsettling, it makes his heart feel at peace. _Surprisingly._

When he walks out, something smacks his bag and he turns sharply, only to see a familiar blue-haired face staring at him, still in a throwing position.

The stationery bag lies on the dusty ground, its green covering lightly coated in brown. Karma bends down and picks it up with a frown.

“What are you doing?” His gray eyes slant and he holds the bag up, like a murder weapon during a case. Nagisa blinks and straightens up, making sure his sleeves aren’t crumpled and dirty. He mutters something that Karma can’t hear, then stares him in the eye.

“You’re different from everyone else,” he states, and the blue swallows up Karma again and irritates him to no end.

The redhead raises his eyebrow inquisitively, a sense of wonderment and apprehension rising in his gut, and the other boy takes it as a green light to continue talking.

“You didn’t pay attention to me today.”

The feeling inside Karma deflates. His eyebrows falls back again and he takes two steps backwards, leaning forwards without blinking, but Nagisa only stares back at him in the same manner. _It’s almost unnerving, if he cared, but with the words that poured out of his mouth, he’s no longer an enigma._

But the redhead smirks, feral with his fiery hair and menacing eyes. “Did you want me to pay attention to you?”

Instead of seeing the frustration and embarrassment Karma expected, he watches as a small smile graces the blue-haired male’s face. It twists his face into a plastic doll almost. It’s perfect and impeccable, but it doesn’t feel right to Karma. He grimaces, but it’s cut short when Nagisa replies, “It was more like relief, that someone was different.”

He takes some careful steps forward, gingerly, as if he’s stepping on eggshells and sleeping men. The smile is still pasted on; _it grosses him out, how disgustingly human it looks. Dog-like and subservient smiles reserved for superiority._

“But you know,” Nagisa continues, his hands slipping behind his back. “How I’m an assassin?”

He looks hopeful and Karma snorts. The blue-haired boy continues without a break in his stride.

“I need someone to become friends with. Just one person!” His blue, blue eyes look at gray eyes and Karma wishes he is gone and silent and mute, just so he can go back home. He’s annoying, and spouting lies, yet again. “It does matter who though, and since you’re different…”

It’s like he almost expects the redhead to suddenly exclaim that he’s the one.

Karma nearly laughs aloud at his own thoughts.

_“I think I want you to be my friend.”_

__

The blue eyes suddenly look less like peaceful skies and more like roiling oceans.

“Don’t joke with me,” Karma spits out and he raises his chin, staring down at the smaller boy with disgust in his gray eyes. _No one has time for his lies, and certainly not him._

The timid, soft footsteps follow him and the redhead’s hands in his pockets tighten into fists. He feels his blood boiling and his head lowering as he looks at the ground in a half-hearted attempt to calm down. The counselors told him to count numbers, so that he wouldn’t have the urge to punch someone’s face in. They told him to meditate, but he really never did, and never does. It’s not like he even has the desire to do something as normal as that.

“But it’s not a joke…” _It sounds like he’s pleading._

_Pitiful_ , Karma thinks.

“I need someone to see me off...before I disappear.”

The redhead stops. Turns to look at his shadow and sees only earnest, blue eyes, watching him, almost as if gauging his reaction.

“It’s true, you know!” Nagisa’s eyebrows furrow down and he almost exclaims it, but _screaming that things are the truth doesn’t make it true._ Karma swallows the urge to punch him in his pale face, the face of a baby that can never, ever be an assassin’s face. It can’t hide tricks, it attracts too much attention, it’s something that makes him so angry and he can’t explain why.

_Who gives you the right to try and be my friend?_

“Stop lying and leave me alone.”

This time, Nagisa doesn’t follow him. And Karma doesn’t turn back to see.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

Every weekday after that, Nagisa waits for Karma after school.

Sometimes he’s leaning against the shoe lockers, looking at the ceiling as if it’s the most amazing painting in the world. Other times he’s sitting, holding himself in a pose that almost looks like a fashion shoot. The light shines on his face almost constantly and his pale skin looks almost translucent.

_Trash_ , Karma thinks, and he always brushes past him.

But when he does, he always feels the soft impact of something hitting his bag and he has to turn around, _he doesn’t know why, but he does_ , and picks up the object. Nagisa is always looking at him with his bright eyes and his dumb, plastic smile. They never walk side-by-side; it’s always the smaller boy who lags behind. His footsteps sound irregular, but Karma tells himself that it’s none of his business, that he’s not a babysitter and that he doesn’t have to be worried at all.

And yet, the blue-haired boy keeps up with him, vaguely.

But when Karma walks too fast and he’s too far away, something in his heart twinges and almost aches. As if he’s feeling pity for the boy who can’t help but walk slowly with the face of determination set in stone.

However, just as he’s about to turn around, Nagisa is so surprised, he trips and falls with a thud.

He doesn’t move for a moment and Karma walks back cautiously.

“Aren’t assassins supposed to be resilient?” The redhead smirks as he stands above the prone boy. Nagisa raises his head though, and his pale skin is dabbed with dirt and specks of mud. He’s gross.

“Of course,” a frown crosses the dirty face. “This is nothing!”

_The smile is back._

Just as he’s about to stand up, there’s a tear in the black pants of their uniform. Karma expects to see pale skin, as white as his face, but there’s a sudden shock when he sees the disgusting swirl of discoloration. Purple, a deep yellow, it all hides in the shadows of his pants, but it disappears so quickly that he doesn’t know if it’s his imagination or not. Nagisa inhales sharply, but his lips never waver from its position.

“You have bruises.” He makes sure it’s not a question.

The blue-haired boy blinks for a moment, then looks him in the eye, smile on full-force. “Being an assassin is hard work, you know.”

He doesn’t want to hear that **bullshit** again. Without another word, Karma starts back on the road, leaving him behind; he checks his watch and figures that he should hurry home before he misses the show on the television. It’s Nagisa’s fault that he has to rush. The freak that won’t stop lying, he convinces himself that’s what he thinks of him.

The bruises are none of his business.

_None at all._

* * *

 

Almost no one approaches Karma. On a daily basis, it’s either Nagisa, the teacher, or the class representatives.

But today is an exception. It’s weird and almost uncomfortable, seeing someone walk up to his desk as if they can get away with it.

Kayano Kaede, a bubbly girl wearing pigtails in a way that confounds Karma every time he sees them, walks up to his desk in a surprisingly shy and docile way. His eyes apprehend her and she freezes, like a deer in headlights. Karma’s the one driving the car, and it’s up to him whether or not he’ll stop or hit her head-on.

“What do you want?” He almost growls.

Her hesitance reminds him of Nagisa, whenever he asks the questions that make him blink, then reply. “C-can you ask Nagisa if he...wants to catch a movie or something?” Her words make Karma’s blood boil. _He shouldn’t be concerned with messages; he’s not a mailboy, far from it._

“Can’t you ask him yourself?” He wants his eyes to be blank and wide, so he can scare her off, but she’s surprisingly resilient.

“I thought...I’d have a better chance!..If I asked a friend of his,” her voice tapers down to almost a whisper as she makes eye contact, then looks back down. Kayano’s fingers are twisting and pulling at each other, as if it’ll ease her anxiety. As if it’ll fix the words she decided to spew out to him. _It clearly won’t._

__

“It’s silly. What makes you think we’re friends?” Karma almost barks out a laugh as he turns back to the window, sinking deep into the perfect nothingness of his thoughts.

He hears Kayano stutter. “O-oh, I just--”

And she leaves with, probably, an embarrassed blush on her face. She’s been humiliated and it makes Karma giddy just thinking about it.

He wonders if he can do the same to Nagisa, but shakes it out of his head.

_That’s silly. Thinking about Nagisa is silly._

* * *

 

But he asks him anyway, making sure that the blue-haired boy understands that it’s _Kayano_ that’s asking him and not _Karma_.

“I’ll only go if Karma’s going.”

“Fine.”

* * *

 

The only movie theater close by is twenty minutes by train.

Karma waits impatiently as both Nagisa and Kayano have to buy temporary tickets to pass the gates. He shoves his monthly pass into his pant pocket and starts on ahead.

He almost expects something to hit his back, but nothing does.

“Ah, we finally caught up,” Kayano breathes and grins at Nagisa, but the blue-haired boy’s eyes are glued to the stairs leading to the movie theater. He looks enchanted by the simple, but large design, and it almost brings up the imagine of a small kitten, staring at its first snowfall.

“I’m excited!” Nagisa cries out as he attempts to dash towards the building, but he ultimately slows down and Karma only glimpses the twist of pain on his face.

_His legs must still be bruised. I won’t ask, it’s none of my business._

When they get to the front, they let Nagisa pick the movie. Kayano watches the blue-haired boy flounder about excitedly and get flustered as he orders his own ticket. Karma simply observes the people walking in and out, listening to snippets of the conversation going by. He doesn’t notice the blue sky eyes glancing at him periodically and doesn’t notice the way he slides up only to his left side.

Kayano frowns as whatever she says is lost as she’s blithely ignored.

* * *

 

The movie turns out to be just a normal, cliched action movie.

The only thing relevant that Karma found was the soundtrack. While Kayano blabbers on and on about how amazing the female sidekick is, Nagisa kicks his legs back-and-forth, like a small child, on the train. It makes a rhythmic thumping noise and soon enough, the girl stops talking.

The redhead can’t see her expression, but surely she’s angry.

After all, the entire time, it seemed like Nagisa was only talking to him.

“Karma, did you enjoy the movie?” _Will he lie if I ask him if he enjoyed it?_

He looks to the side with slitted, gray eyes. “It was trashy.”

“I guess I think so too.” A smile overtakes his pale face and Kayano looks away, shielding her hurt. _If she disappears, Nagisa probably won’t even notice._

Karma asks, suddenly, _expecting an answer full of wishes and hopes and fragile webs of dreams containing the future_ , “Isn’t there anything you love? Like a hobby, or--”

“I love my mother,” Nagisa crinkles his nose a little and leans closer to Karma, a dumb smile playing on his lips. “But if you become my friend, maybe I’ll love you too!”

Karma manages to keep his bubbling laughter from surfacing at the ridiculousness of his words. Fools can only talk to fools, so he should stop talking to the smaller boy.

“I don’t need your love,” he snorts, and turns to face the window, watching the fields rush by like the way he walks home.

* * *

 

Kayano leaves first, rushing back to her house and Nagisa seems startled at her. Karma doesn’t blame her, but he makes no move to comfort her.

_She’ll hate him for it._

Today, is also different. The sunset sky doesn’t reflect the color of the smaller boy’s eyes and they walk side-by-side. They’re not friends, merely classmates walking together through convenience. Karma’s house is in this direction, and Nagisa points out that his house is on the straight street they’re walking on.

The sounds of the train station, bustling and full of human noises, fades deeply and what remains is the quiet atmosphere of the suburban landscape. The street lights flicker on, illuminating the clouds of bugs that Nagisa squeaks and steps to avoid. He looks small and vulnerable at night; his words are surely not true, him being an assassin.

Karma sometimes wonders why he takes so much effort to fabricate a dumb story like that.

By the time they reach his house, the tip of both their noses are red and their breath shows in the dark, cold dusk.

Nagisa doesn’t look him in the eyes as he opens the gate and turns to thank him. His house appears so big, and he, so small. An ant to a hill, but ants are stronger than they seem. Karma wonders if he can comment that he doesn’t look like an assassin, but he knows the rebuttals filled with little sweet lies will shoot him back.

He can almost hear his voice in his head. _“You can’t see the true power of the assassin through their looks, you know.”_

Karma almost snarls as he turns to walk away, but a shadow in the window attracts his attention.

It looks suspicious, but he swallows his intuition and reminds himself that whatever happens in that house doesn’t affect him in any way.

* * *

 

Nagisa doesn’t show up for school the next day.

His seat is empty and Kayano’s face is blank. Karma doesn’t care. He faces forward and out the window, and watches the clouds float by the canvas of sea stretched across the sky.

Kayano doesn’t approach him and he doesn’t approach her.

* * *

 

The Saturday sun burns Karma’s skin as he rushes for shelter in the marketplace. As he checks off the groceries on his list, through the window as he stands in line, he glimpses a figure that walks by. _They have blue hair._

He swallows the seed of some human feeling down back into his gut. _No need to worry, it’s only a day that he didn’t go to school._

Outside, the air is rather warm and stifling, and Karma makes it a priority to get back home as fast as possible. His list of to-do’s does not have anything to do with Nagisa, finding Nagisa, or seeing Nagisa, and he plans to keep it that way.

But when he glances towards the hardware store, there’s the blue-haired boy, almost like a beacon of light as he stands, sunlight reflecting off of his glass skin.

Karma can’t help but be curious, and the more he watches, the more intrigued he gets.

_Perhaps he was wrong about Shiota Nagisa’s mysteries._

Nagisa is looking at knives. Not kitchen knives, he realizes as he walks closer to inspect. They’re the butcher knives and the machetes that farmhands use to kill animals. It’s only slightly unnerving and he wonders if the boy is actually playing out his assassin lies. It settles heavily in his stomach and his grip on the groceries tighten.

“Eh? Karma!” His voice breaks Karma out of his reverie and he frowns.

“I was just looking for a good knife. Not sure if they sell sharpeners here, though,” Nagisa scratches his head and his long-sleeved shirt makes a crisp crinkling noise. The redhead wonders how he can stand the heat in those stifling clothes.

“They sell them.”

“Oh, that’s good then,” a smile breaks out on the smaller boy’s face as he goes inside the shop.

A couple minutes later, he returns, holding a package that definitely looks like a blade. He’s smiling, as if it’s a normal occurrence to buy such large knives and Karma vaguely feels that there’s something wrong with this set-up.

“Why’re you buying a knife?” The redhead raises an eyebrow and acts nonchalant. It’s none of his business, but he’s curious anyway. Nagisa does his thing: he blinks, then adjusts his sleeves and holds the package close, as if it’s a treasure he can’t bear to let go of. He then shrugs and replies,

“It’s not only me that’s an assassin, you know that right?”

Karma finds himself briefly closing his eyes and counting numbers in his head so that he doesn’t explode.

“I bought this for my mom,” he continues and looks at the package with a smile.

“I see,” the redhead mutters, but the smaller boy hears it and looks at him with surprised, blue eyes. Karma has given up on arguing about the lies, so he lets them wash over him and fool his mind for just a little. In those moments, he realizes that he’s just walked Nagisa back to his house, the house whose gate towers over the smaller boy.

But this time, he pauses and looks him in the eye, blue and gray, warm, bright, earnest, and tilts his head to the side.

“I hope you’ll see me off when the time comes, Karma,” and with that, the gate slams with a creak and he enters his house without a glance back.

* * *

 

“He’s definitely a compulsive liar,” Karma complains to the laptop screen that shows his parents’ faces. His dad shares his fiery hair, but the kid has inherited his mother’s sharp, gray eyes. But at the moment, they’re only liquid metal, warm and worried as she analyzes his words.

“Is there any reason why he would do something like that?” His father presses him and junior version only shakes his head with a frustrated expression.

“I don’t...particularly want to know more about him,” he replies and with an afterthought, he adds, “It’s really none of my business how he lives his life.”

His parents glance at each other and exchange looks, but they willingly change the subject, and off his mother goes on how beautiful and exotic henna is in India, but Karma knows that it’s on their minds.

_He doesn’t look forward to the next time they’ll chat, then._

* * *

 

Karma feels like he’s in denial. He does not, tries not to, glance at the empty seat behind him. He relaxes in his seat and he feels his shoulders tense and his eyes darting back and forth. There’s no explanation for his anxiety. None at all.

No, he doesn’t want to acknowledge the fact that Shiota Nagisa has been absent for two days.

* * *

 

The next time he sees him, he looks even more vulnerable than before.

His glass cheek has band-aids on it, multiple, all haphazardly stuck on as if he were running as he did it, and between his fingers, bandages wrapped tightly around them. But the thing that sticks out to Karma the most are the crystalline tears that bead up in his blue sky eyes.

He can’t help but rush over, to see if _there’s really something up, is it really assassin work, no, he’s not curious at all._ But Nagisa won’t speak, the bandages on his fingers are almost fraying from the sheer amount of liquid it has absorbed from his eyes. They drip down his wrist and into his dark, long-sleeved shirt.

“What happened…?” _That’s the right question to ask, right?_

“It...was a botched job, on my part,” the blue-haired boy finally manages to choke out a coherent, non-hiccuped sentence, but goes straight back to crying. His shoulders are shaking and he’s not warm at all, no heat coming from his body.

“It’s not the injuries you’re crying about,” Karma hisses, but before he can continue, Nagisa pipes up:

“She killed my rabbit, today.”

The redhead closes his mouth and presses his lips together.

“She?”

Nagisa nods and Karma racks his brain to think of possible females that he knows. Kayano, and his mom.

“It was easy for her, she’s strong from all her assassinations. She didn’t even have to use all of her tools,” he hiccups, then clutches his shoulders tighter. “She used the knife and washed it off but didn’t wash my poor--”

Although he’s sure the tears are real, but in the end, what’s real when it comes to the trickster with the imagination of a 10 year-old otaku? Karma isn’t sure if the story is even true. It’s possible that his rabbit just died and he’s fabricating a story, but he could also be telling the truth, and he feels like it’s his responsibility to separate those two sides.

“Is that a lie? I have places to go, you know,” the redhead bites out and suddenly, there are hands that grab his jacket, surprisingly tight.

“It’s true, it’s true!” He cries out and now, the tears run down his face. A loose band-aid starts to peel and underneath, the pale skin is marred with a blossom of purple. “I’m...not lying, I swear!”

Karma leaned close, and Nagisa backed away. His gray eyes were cold, and those blue eyes were scared. “Prove it, then. If it’s not a lie.”

“W-wait--”

“We’re going to see the grave. Where is it?!” _There’s a bubbling anxiety in his gut, and Nagisa’s trembling is transferring to the redhead’s hand. He doesn’t understand why guilt is suddenly invading his heart._

The boy resists, but it’s all futile. Karma’s grip is iron as he pulls Nagisa to a place where even he doesn’t know.

And Nagisa points towards the mountain and the beaten down path.

_With that, the gears of fate begin their grinding turn towards that fateful day._

* * *

 

The small boy shivers all the way up. Despite the warm hand that grips his upper arm, there’s no denying the chill on the mountain that digs deep into their bones.

“I don’t want…”

“You told me it wasn’t a lie, so you have to prove it,” Karma presses his lips together to keep his composure. He hopes that he doesn’t explode from his own pent-up anger, and he hopes that he doesn’t find a stick in smooth dirt that’s presented as a grave. The frigid breeze tickles the back of his neck and from behind him, Nagisa looks up.

“It’s close, but can we please...go back?” The blue pigtails fluff up in the wind and they die down, falling like ripped shreds of paper on the ground.

“I need to see it with my own eyes.”

“It’s...there.” Nagisa points, and as soon as Karma lets go, he falls to the ground. His sleeves drag in the dirt and his legs tremble, just like his entire frame. _He reminds him of a rabbit, anxious and ready to flee._

The redhead forges his way through the foliage, watching out for dangerous plants and animals, but he makes it through safely, where there’s a sick stench in the air. The mountain air is always fresh and scented with the deep earthy smell of growth, but here, in the lit clearing, there’s only the stench of death and metal.

There was no lie about the rabbit that passed Nagisa’s lips that day.

Karma stumbles back as he has to choke back the acrid taste of vomit as it rises up his throat. Nagisa is on the ground, sobbing, yet again, mud caking his legs and hands and even his face, streaked under his eyes as if he had no care for hygiene.

“N-nagisa, c’mon,” he murmurs and pulls him up by the arms. He doesn’t notice the flash of pain that crosses his face. “Oh god, why’d you have to fall down--here--”

Just as he’s about to roll up the dirty sleeve, the boy moves away from him suddenly with a silent scream in his throat. The look in his eyes is amazingly clear, _full of unadulterated fear, and the sky reflected is dripping blood_ , and it churns Karma’s stomach, makes him feel sick, that it’s not serene blue.

“Okay, okay, let’s get you home, then,” he amends his work with his words as they stumble back down the mountain.

 

* * *

The first thing he looks for when he passes through the door is the head of blue-hair that bobs in the back of the room.

He sighs inwardly in relief when he sees it, but he realizes it’s missing the movement, the excitement and energy that used to inhabit his body. Nagisa stares at his hands and barely flickers his eyes in Karma’s direction. Judging by his listless pool of empty blue eyes, he looks exhausted, drained. But from across the room, there’s someone boiling with animosity.

When he glances over, he sees Kayano. _Is she still angry?_

Her eyes fixate on Nagisa and Karma feels something drop in his stomach.

* * *

 

Karma purposefully hangs behind, pretending to still be dozing.

He cracks open his eye to peer out and watches as the last few students file out of the door. Some of them shoot his “sleeping” form a worried look, while others glance at Nagisa, who hasn’t moved an inch from his seat. His desk’s top is empty and smooth, but its user is full of turmoil.

Kayano stands up suddenly, the chair rattling with a ear-hurting scratch against the floor. With that, and her eyes blazing, she marches to the blue-haired boy’s desk and slams her palm on it with a resounding bang. Her face is twisted with anger, almost beyond recognition, _because who would ever see the small, precious girl act like a devil?_

“Do you know,” she spat. “How hurt I was that day?”

Nagisa was silent as he bowed his head. His blinks were slow and he fumbled with his hands.

“ **Of course not!** ” She screams and jerks the boy out of his seat. His shirt crinkles amazingly and it slips out from its tucked-in position. “Being ignored?! During something that was supposed to be just us?!”

With a rough hand, she shoves Nagisa into the wall and with a resounding thump of his body impacting, he slides down, looking miserable and defeated. But he’s more like a doll, a ragdoll tossed about by a dog, than a human. Karma bites his lip so hard he tastes blood. He’s ready to jump up to stop her from going too far.

“ **Why didn’t you just tell me you didn’t want to go?!** ” Tears stream down Kayano’s face as she pulls him up by the collar. He doesn’t make eye contact with her at all; his empty eyes slide from side to side, up to the ceiling, down to the tiled floor, then onto Karma.

It feels like he’s calling for a savior, so this time, he feels his gaze and he stands up, his chair clattering just like Kayano’s did.

“K-karma?”

Her arm is arched back behind her, bent at the elbow, fingers curled into a fist. Her eyes are wide and they remind Karma of Nagisa’s eyes on the mountain. _Full of fear._

“Stop,” he takes a threatening step forward and Kayano lets go of his collar. The blue-haired boy’s eyes close as his chest rises up and down, weakly, vulnerably. He and his glass body seem so tainted when the redhead looks at him now, white stained with black and purple and roses with dead petals.

She falls, and with a choked gasp, scrambles to her feet and runs out of the classroom.

Karma stands, almost like a lost statue in the room, looking blankly at the mess of blue that sits on the floor. His neck lolls at an odd angle, but he’s sure it’s not broken; Kayano doesn’t have that strength, even if Nagisa wasn’t protesting against it.

Both of them are silent as the redhead tucks Nagisa’s shirt back into his pants, hiding the sliver of purpled skin along his stomach.

When they walk home that day, the mid-sunset light bathing them in orange and pink, the blue-haired boy, with glass skin reflecting the sun, grasps his jacket tightly and refuses to speak.

* * *

 

Nagisa’s face is bruised the next day.

There’s an ugly misshapen mark on his cheek and thin scabs near his jawline. His eyes are the same as yesterday and Karma feels like he can’t breathe when he looks at him. The thoughts of _freak_ and _liar_ never cross his mind as the redhead turns to look out the window with his gray eyes thoughtful and hard.

Kayano doesn’t dare breathe a word next to him, but when she’s with her friends, he can feel their eyes, staring at him, judging him.

_It has never mattered to him, it doesn’t matter now._

The bell rings and he stands up first, slinging his bag over his shoulder and walking towards Nagisa. The blue-haired boy’s eyes flicker up and it’s like a deep well that he’s looking into. _The sides of the well are blue, but within, it’s a deep, tar-like black and it’s sucking him in and he doesn’t want to go._

__

But as both of them maintain eye contact, Karma notices something strange in one of his eyes. _Unfocused…_

When they walk back, he tells Nagisa to read the billboard they’re passing. His eyes squint and the redhead watches as pain flashes over his face when his right eye widens in an attempt to see the broad, black words. It takes a while, but he’s able to sound them out and he almost looks triumphant when he does and the taller boy affirms his answer.

That night, when Karma talks to his parents, he mentions his eye and his mom speaks slowly and grimly,

“I think his ‘assassin’ business may have damaged his eyes, Karma.”

* * *

 

Walking home with the blue glass doll becomes a part of his routine.

Everyone ignores the two of them when they stroll on the dirt path. Nagisa no longer has to limp to catch up to him, to throw his bag with his weak, skinny arms. When they walk side-by-side, there’s always a small, dumb smile on his pale face and Karma still wants to wipe it off. The teachers assign them together for cleaning duties, and when they do, the redhead wonders if the smile is like the remnants of the chalk powder on the blackboards.

The breeze smells of fresh air and earth, but Nagisa curls tighter into himself, his jacket tight and his steps shaky.

Karma grits his teeth and tightens his fists.

“Do you always wear that jacket?” The redhead nearly hisses out and the smaller boy blinks and looks at him with such wide eyes that he nearly wants to take back the venom in his voice. _He’s never wanted to regret his own tone of voice._

“I do, because it’s special to me,” Nagisa looks at it with such fondness that Karma can’t help but figure that his mom gave it to him.

_She’s no good to you, don’t you dare protect her, you glass soldier._

He stops, then Nagisa stops, but he moves at such a speed that the shaking boy has no time to react. Ripping the jacket with a sick tearing noise with sheer strength, Karma ends up tearing the white, long-sleeved shirt that the blue-haired male wore every day, without an ounce of regret in his heart. The strumming of the beat in his ears roars and he can’t hear the frightened cries of the boy beneath him.

“K-karma, stop!” _He doesn’t stop._

“P-please!” Karma rolls up the sleeves, and it’s only then he decides that he’ll acknowledge the red light.

Flowers of disgust bloom from within him, but also on Nagisa’s skin. The glass doll is stuffed full, angry red slashes on the breast of the fragile body, pinched bruises of purple, streaks of green and yellow like shooting stars on a white sky; Karma wants to erase it all away and start anew like a fresh paper, but he knows the eraser won’t clear the board. _Invisible marks, like chalk residue, will always remain, made forever to stain forever._

__

“It wasn’t her, it’s not her fault, please, Karma--” He’s crying again, blubbering words that are his own thoughts lying to him. His fingers scrabble to hold on to something, but it’s only crumbly dirt that meets his hands. “K-karma…”

The redhead slides off of the small body, carefully, and Nagisa sits up, his cheeks wet with tears and his clothes brown with earth. The pigtails he ties up cautiously are almost scattered and loose, but with a twang, the hair bands break and his hair drops to his shoulders, picked up by the wind and swaying like wheat in a field.

He looks fragile, worried, vulnerable, small shoulders and thin hands and bony ridges underneath the stretched-thin canvas of his skin. His eyes are distant and one of them is blank and the other is bright.

Nagisa doesn’t even react when Karma holds his hand in his.

He silently brings the slender, cold fingers to his cheek and leans into it. Gray eyes close and Karma can hear the weak beating of the doll’s heart. It’s almost peaceful, to anyone, it would look peaceful, two boys together, one comforting the other, but beneath the surface, the storm rages and red strings snap like hair bands.

_Karma doesn’t want to let go and he doesn’t remember when he started feeling this way._

__

* * *

 

“Do you know what Stockholm syndrome is?” The sound of his father’s voice is no comfort and the seriousness in his eyes only sinks the feeling in his heart.

Karma wants a happy ending, he really does. He doesn’t want Nagisa the fragile puppet to entertain him anymore, it’s too much now, too much for even him, and he hopes to every God out there that he’ll be cured and that everything will be alright, like it always is. But his lies and his smiles and his twisted limbs ache of future heartbreak and the taste of tears.

“Yes,” he nods and that’s all that needs to be said.

That night, Karma cannot sleep, so he walks outside in the cold, bitter night and he wonders if the stars he sees in the sky are the same stars Nagisa sees.

* * *

 

Nagisa doesn’t come to school and no one is fazed.

Karma stares out the window, and the two birds are flying yet again. But one of them in particular can’t flap and he curiously watches as it settles by the building, raising one of its feet. Its wing looks clipped and the other bird cries at it, noises that sound like keening, but the bird cannot move. It replies, and slowly, its probable mate flies away, leaving the bird there.

Months back, Karma would’ve grinned maliciously at it.

Now, he can’t even muster any emotion that would give him that joy again.

* * *

 

Nagisa sits in his usual spot, by the lockers, his feet swinging abnormally cheerfully. His hands are bandaged and he has a new jacket, but it’s large and seemingly doesn’t fit him. His fingers curl within each other, as if he’s holding a gun and Karma shrugs his shoulders.

“Why weren’t you at school today?” The blue-haired boy gets up and teeters on his feet, as if they’re springs and he can’t control them.

He never replies to the question, but the both of them walk together on the dirty road, passing the scuffed spots where they both fell and apprehended each other. The smaller male opens his mouth, then closes it, _a fish out of water, breathe, breathe the air, please._

__

“The day is here.”

And with those four words, Karma already understands.

They reach the crossroads and Nagisa leans towards him, his hair not cascading to his shoulders today, just in the pigtails and for some reason, it irks the redhead to no end, to see that he’s still wearing them and that he hasn’t changed.

“Will you walk me home?”

Karma takes a step towards Nagisa’s house. “I’ll always walk you home.”

After their exchange, both of them don’t speak. The birds warble their songs and there’s the distant ringing of a bike bell, but there are no words in the air between them. Nagisa’s jacket is loose on his body and Karma’s bag keeps hitting his back in the way he’s holding it.

Karma’s head is filled with so many questions, and so few answers. _He won’t ever understand Nagisa._

“Karma, are you my friend?”

He closes his eyes. He wonders if the blackness behind his eyelids is what Nagisa sees when he gets beaten by his mother, and he wonders if that’s how tainted he feels afterwards. It’s a sickening feeling, to realize that he won’t ever be the light that will guide him out of it. Karma’s rather useless when it comes to things like these, so he only offers the words that come out of his heart.

“Yeah.”

Karma’s eyes are closed and he misses the lilt of the smaller boy’s lips.

* * *

 

“I’m glad that you’re the one that’ll see me off, you know.”

It feels like Nagisa is rambling now, as the two of them stand in front of his house. The curtains are barely moving, but Karma can see them. _Unsettling, something in his heart, he knows it’s a lie, isn’t it? That he’ll disappear today._

“Why?” Karma’s voice is a vile whisper and he wishes he could scream it out.

“You’re my friend, aren’t you?” Nagisa’s eyebrows are sad and his smile is not at all plastic anymore.

Something stirs inside of him, warmth in his gut but a chill down his spine. The gate isn’t there anymore and Karma steps inside, walks him right up to the heavy door that seems more like a prison cell than a house. _From here, could he see the same stars that Karma could, lying on the ground with the window pointed to the sky?_

__

Nagisa’s hand grasps the door and it opens, just a fraction. As he pulls it, his blue eyes are drawn back to Karma, Karma and his hands in his pockets and his black jacket and his worried gray eyes. He stops the door with his foot, leaving both hands free. One is limp by his side, the bandages wrapping his fingers loose and spiralling to the ground.

Karma stops breathing.

Nagisa waves, a small gesture, and the smile on his face breaks Karma’s heart. _It’s real, it’s real, it’s not plastic, he’s changed, he’s waving, he’ll see me again, we’re friends--_

__

But when the door slams, the lies he feeds himself clatter to the ground.

When did Karma become someone like Nagisa? When…

He lunges to the door, and yanks at the handle, but it doesn’t budge, not an inch. The heavy door is a cell door, a prison for both the ones on the inside and the ones on the outside.

“Nagisa!! Nagisa, let me in!”

He’s pounding on the door, his fist turning red.

“Why didn’t you let me save you?!”

Tears are running down his face.

“Why didn’t you tell anyone **the truth**?!”

_Red, red, red, he can just see it now._

_“Please!”_

Karma slides to the ground and his legs buckle beneath him and he falls and he can’t breathe, his lungs are constricting and the world spins around him as he realizes he’s too late, far too late to save him. He curses himself, the world, and even Nagisa.

****

_“P-please...let me not be late…”_

Where silence used to comfort him, he finds none now.

The house is eerily quiet and his fist is still against the door and his tears are silent as they choke him with their empathetic hands. He’s heaving, his chest burns, and he can’t explain why. It feels like forever when he’s ready to stand up, but even then, his legs are shaking and he feels like Nagisa on their first meeting.

Karma picks up his bag and he nearly crumples again. He rounds out and he’s on the street, when he hears the door open.

And he freezes, turns around.

“Nagisa?” His gray eyes are wide and suddenly, he wants to cry again, but no blue pops up.

_He’s not looking into blue sky eyes today._

Instead, it’s a woman. She has dark hair, down to her shoulders, straight, and it reminds him of Nagisa’s without the pigtails. Her skin is as pale as glass, and tears are streaking down her face as she rolls something out from the walls around her house. Karma’s still frozen, even as he watches her cry with a silver suitcase, even as he knows that something is wrong and he should’ve stopped her.

But he only watches as she gets into the car and drives away, leaving only the trail of exhaust in her wake.

Seeing it is like a wake-up call.

Karma dashes towards the house, and he grips the handle and apprehension wells in his body. He throws it open in one stroke, it’s easier than what it looks like.

The inside of the house is impeccably clean and he wonders if Nagisa was the one who cleaned it, or if his mom was. His hands feel cold and the feeling creeps through his bones and muscles, freezing him wherever he goes.

“Nagisa?” His voice echoes in the living room space and there’s no answer. His shoe grinds into the white carpet and leaves a dark stain, like bruises against pale skin. “Nagisa, where are you?”

_He already knows where he is, won’t acknowledge it, that’s all._

The kitchen is empty, the first floor bathroom is empty, the family room has barely anything in it and Nagisa is not in it. Books are scattered in the library and Karma doesn’t have the heart to pick them up because a monster is clawing at his heart and telling him to go up the steps. His muddy shoes leave stains all over the carpeted stairs as he slowly climbs up, dread pulling at his hair.

“Nagisa?! We’re friends, aren’t we?”

__

_Still no reply._

“Please answer me!”

But up on the second floor, the silence is broken with the rhythmic sound of water dripping. Karma makes a beeline towards the bathroom, and he throws it open, but it’s the wrong one. Further down the hall, _the darkness of the closed, narrow hallway constricts him like a snake_ , he finds the source of the sound. The door is barely open, just a teaser of what’s inside.

There’s no ungodly scent, but when he pushes open the door, the remnants of it sting his nose.

The sink in the bathtub is dripping and the walls are sparkling clean and slightly wet. A towel is folded over the side of the bath, and it it weren’t for the perfect poised knife, blade down leaning against the side, peeking out of the damp cloth, no one would’ve known that a child had just been slain.

The blade shines with beads of water on its reflective surface. _He can almost see the dark, hopeless blue of Nagisa’s eyes._

Karma rushes out, his feet thundering against the floor. His mind calculates the fastest route to the police station and he practices in a calm, rational voice in his head what he’s going to say. He knows the perpetrator is Nagisa’s mom, and the knife and the cleanliness is all that needs to be said. They will believe him, because of that evidence, of the evidence that he saw on that mountain where Nagisa led him.

But the fear never leaves him, even as the ground beneath his feet changes to concrete, even as bystanders stare at him strangely, even as the police building is in the corner of his eye.

The gulps of breath he takes in are full of anxiety and he bursts through the door with only his words as his only star in the sky.

* * *

 

_“He’s just a kid.”_

_“I don’t believe him, that’s an outrageous story.”_

_“Shoo, go back home, where you can tell your lies there.”_

Karma clenches his fists and he wants to cry, maybe that’ll make his story more believable, but even if he squeezes his eyelids shut and wills his tear ducts to work, nothing comes out. He’s completely drained as he slumps on the sickly teal-colored chair inside the station.

He hears footsteps, and then someone kneels down to look at him.

She has blonde hair and blonde lashes, long and feminine. Her uniform is tight and it accentuates her body, an hourglass many would die to have, but Karma doesn’t care; the only thing he’s looking for is affirmation, acceptance that Nagisa is gone, hopefully only missing. Her expression is simply worry.

“Karma, I believe you.”

Those are the words he’s been looking for.

* * *

 

The both of them hike up the mountain, not Karma and Nagisa, but Karma and Irina, the police officer. He doesn’t drag her by the arm and she’s not shaking, unlike the broken glass doll. To him, the air smells and feels putrid, both in his nose and on his skin. The earth beneath his feet seem to crumble away with every step and he wonders how she can still follow him.

His hand aches, longs for someone to grab, and he attributes it to the impact of Nagisa.

_It’s not like he needs him…_

Karma hisses inside his own brain, at the thoughts that swirl around him endlessly, all chanting that it’s his fault.

Irina is silent beside him, and the mountain is silent, its forests calm and serene, contrary to the fury bubbling like magma beneath the surface of the redhead’s skin. He wraps his jacket tighter around himself as the sting of cold threatens to cool his blood.

“Are you alright, Karma?” The woman’s voice breaks into his head and he nods with piercing gray eyes focusing straight forward.

_If he turns around, will Nagisa be there? Will he be able to pull him forward and ignore the quivering arm in his hand this time?_

This time, there’s no snivelling from behind him; only the sound of the leaves crunching underneath their soles. As the mountain slowly levels off in height, Karma wishes that the lies Nagisa spouted were true; if only he wasn’t lying to protect his mother, things would’ve been better, changed, or maybe he wouldn’t have been able to meet him at all.

_Would things have been better that way?_

__

It feels like his heart throbs violently when he thinks that, if only he got the bruises from his opponents that were too strong.

With his breath only slightly labored, Karma stops and gulps the cold air in, hoping it’ll numb his insides. Irina, on the other hand, steps in front of him, her eyes cool but her hands clasped tightly in one another.

“I’ll go on ahead, then. You should stay here,” she murmurs and with careful steps over the foliage, she disappears into the foggy clearing. There, the redhead waits. His heart, pounding a disgustingly fast beat that echoes in his body, almost hurts as each second ticks by like a clock hand. When he looks down, he realizes his hands really are shaking, and he wonders if he could’ve been the Nagisa in this position. _But he’s not weak,_ he tells himself, _he doesn’t need the memories of a liar in his mind._

The crackling of bushes being stepped on makes him look up and for a moment, his breath catches and his eyes widen in hopes of seeing Nagisa alive and a smile on the officer’s face.

His hopes are crushed with those grim, rosy lips, a line on an angelic face that only looks troubled and disgusted.

“He’s dead,” she speaks softly, as though she could wake him up at any moment. “He’s...been dismembered, it’s best if you don’t go there to see…”

“No,” Karma breathes out and he takes a step forward. _There’s no way he’s gone, no way, he’s lying._

“It’s a lie, isn’t it?”

His gray eyes are wild and luminous and they search Irina’s face for any hint of humor. He gets none, but he refuses to believe. “It’s just a lie!” He takes steps forward and pushes her outstretched arm away.

“You’re lying and he’s lying, he always lies! He can’t be dead!” Karma screams and in the forest, his voice echoes as if there are seven of him thinking the same thing. He doesn’t wait for his own words to fade as he breaks past the stunned woman, running as if his life is on the line, to see it for himself. To prove that Nagisa is a liar, once and for all.

_Lie for me, please, be a liar, I beg of you._

__

The stench of blood permeates the cold, fresh air of the mountain and the redhead’s sprinting slows down to barely a crawl.

“You...always lie…” he whispers, but what’s in front of him isn’t one.

_Nagisa told the truth, a twisted kind of truth, but nevertheless…_

__

The blue eyes that used to irk Karma for so long now only hold death and darkness, empty like the glass cage that kept him imprisoned for all the years of his life. He takes a step forward, then two, and from behind him the crunching of leaves tells him that he’s not alone with his friend anymore. The smears of blood against the earth sickens him, but he lets the remnants of Nagisa’s essence cloud his nose and his senses, falling to his knees, then crawling to kneel beside the broken limbs of his glass doll.

“Nagisa…” Karma whispers and gazes at the intestines dribbling from the incision in his stomach, so wide open that the brown of his liver peeks out and his pink large intestines curl around and spill out. He burns into memory the scattered blue hair in a red-stained arc underneath the lax chin and the way his palm opens to the sky as if he were trying to hold someone’s hand. As if in a trance and his gray eyes never leaving the cracked glass face, he picks up Nagisa’s severed arm, and curls the cold, brittle fingers against his cheek.

_It’s cold, like it was that day they sprawled on their dirt road together._

__

_Was he dead back then, too?_

__

* * *

 

With Irina beside him, the police officers interrogate him and vacuum all the information they can from him. It’s their job, it’s what they have to do to catch Nagisa’s mom, but Karma feels so bitter that he has to confess everything. When he clenches his fists, the woman tries to comfort him by placing a warm hand on his shoulder, but things do not right themselves because of that.

If anything, there’s a part of him that wishes he could’ve kept all of it a secret.

He didn’t have to tell anyone his friend was dead, but the voice of reason in his head whispers that people would’ve found out anyway.

The warmth of the police station is ridiculously suffocating and it feels almost thick, as if he’s sinking into an eternally hot bath. Karma waves at Irina and asks her hollowly, “Can I go outside for a sec?”

She nods, but follows him. They’re not done, and Irina has to follow the protocol, he supposes. The sound of his footsteps in unison with someone else’s feels weird, wrong, even, and he can’t explain why.

The redhead steps outside, then only tilts his head up and closes his eyes for just a brief moment. It almost feels as if he’s free when he opens his hand to the sky and he wonders if that’s why Nagisa died in that position. _The outcome could’ve been different, if he held that hand and didn’t leave it alone._

He coldly wonders if Nagisa can see the same stars he sees now.

* * *

 

Karma sits alone, waiting for his parents.

They don’t want him sitting outside in the cold, or rather, Irina doesn’t, so she forces him back into the disgusting teal chair to choke on the machine-warmed atmosphere. The police officer at the desk keeps glancing at him furtively and Karma snorts if the man thinks he’s being inconspicuous.

He fiddles with his hands, then with the frayed part of his pants, then with his jacket sleeve. Restlessly moving, but utterly silent, the red-haired boy fidgets on the seat.

His eyes flicker to the clock, back again, to the door. Something in him wants to collapse and he wants to close his eyes and for all of it to be just a nightmare. _He’ll wake up in his bed, a little sweaty, his bangs sticking to his forehead and his chest heaving. Nagisa will be there to greet him at school and there won’t be bruises on his face, on his body, he will be okay. Everything will be alri--_

__

“Karma!”

His mother’s voice yells out and in a moment, he feels himself swept up in a tight embrace that nearly snaps his spine.

“I was so worried about you!” She cries out, muffled, as her face presses into his shoulder. He can almost feel the tears rolling down her face, but she isn’t crying. After releasing him from her hold, she keeps him still and her gray eyes rove about his face and she brushes his tender cheek and finds it moist with tears.

“Karma...You’re crying…”

Her voice sounds almost distant and he barely can reply. Her face blurs and the memories in his head seem to mix together like a bad brew in his head.

“I am…?” Karma touches his face and his fingers are wet with tears when he retracts them.

His dad worriedly places an arm over his shoulders and carefully soothes, “Let’s go home, you’ve been through a lot.”

The redhead lets himself be steered out from the building, feeling more doll than human now that he realizes a part of his life can never return.

* * *

 

School is excruciating.

Everyone is sickeningly sympathetic and their eyes are always dripping with honey. When Kayano hears of the news, she approaches him hesitantly and her luminous eyes are downcast. Red rims them as if she cried for a long time, but Karma knows that he probably cried more.

She only whispers, “I’m sorry,” and flees like a scared rabbit.

He slams his fist on the desk, a blazing river of fire paralyzing his body. _As if words could bring anyone back._

When the bell rings, there’s no one to walk with him back. He slips out of his desk first and rushes down the stairs, but it’s blank space that awaits him by the locker and by the window of the entrance. No one is swinging their feet and humming under their breath. Every day, he finds himself disappointed by something that he should’ve accepted a long time ago.

When he walks home from school, he trudges, drags his feet in the dusty ground as if waiting for someone to catch up.

Karma never voices aloud the desire for something to hit him in the back, and when he turns, there will be Nagisa, him and his blue sky eyes that he was too afraid to say he adored. He wants to see the dumb smile, even if it’s fake; he wants to hear a lie about his assassin work, no matter how many times he’s repeated it.

_It’s a silly desire, but it’s worth to someone who has loved._

He glances behind him skeptically and he nods, almost acceptingly, when there’s nothing there.

Karma wraps his jacket around himself tighter and mechanically breathes.

_He won’t forget that the blue sky is the color of his eyes._

****  
  


**Author's Note:**

> im s o rr y (that its really not gay karma)


End file.
